The success of the "Voice of Sandalbar" could be measured not in numbers, but in smoke.
Across the fifty villages, a new evening ritual had formed—quietly, naturally, as if it had always been waiting for a reason to exist. In the late afternoon, women began dragging their heavy clay chulhas out from private courtyards into the open squares. They arranged them in rings—concentric circles—around the brick Stronghold, where the radio receiver sat like a guarded idol.
By the time the sun tilted and the shadows lengthened, the square would fill with the smell of burning wood and fresh rotis. Children ran between cooking fires. Older women sat together, rolling dough, arguing, laughing. When Sohni's voice rose from the wooden box at six o'clock, it mixed with the crackle of flames and the clink of utensils—music braided into domestic life.
The change was not subtle. It was immediate. It was humiliatingly obvious, once you saw it.
At the morning briefing in the Canal Bungalow, Mary D'Souza spoke in a low voice, as if saying it too loudly would jinx it.
"The beatings have stopped," she said. "Not everywhere. Not permanently. But… enough that I can see it in the women's faces."
Ahmed looked up from his ledger.
Mary continued, her tone still practical—still Mary—but there was something underneath it, something close to awe.
"The men are too busy arguing about Balvinder's jokes to yell at their wives. And because the women are cooking in groups, there is no panic about a late dinner. The radio has done what ten years of police work failed to do."
Even the vice trade was shrinking. Farabi patrols reported that the riverbank brewers—men who lived off illegal alcohol and quiet addiction—had tried to slip their product into the gatherings. They were driven off, not by rifles, but by the crowd itself. The village square had become "family time," and the people guarded it with a strange pride.
Jinnah listened without expression, but the calculation was running behind his eyes.
A voice with a schedule was stronger than a baton.
A habit was stronger than a proclamation.
But he also knew an old truth: where light enters, shadows follow.
1) The Alliance of the Beards
It started as murmurs.
In mosques. In gurdwaras. In temples.
At first, it was the typical complaint of authority—men who hated anything they had not approved. Then the murmurs found each other. They merged. They sharpened. They became a single, ugly certainty: the radio was not merely entertainment; it was influence. And influence, in Punjab, always attracted a claim.
A delegation arrived at the estate gates.
It was a rare sight. A dangerous one.
A mullah in a stiff turban. A rigid Hindu pundit with judgment in his eyes. A conservative Sikh granthi whose mouth tightened as if even breathing was a compromise. They did not come as rivals. They came as allies—united by a common enemy: a wooden box that made the villagers laugh, think, and listen.
They refused the Chesterfield sofas. They stood in Jinnah's study as if sitting would be a concession.
The mullah spoke first, voice rising with indignation that felt rehearsed.
"This box is a tool of Shaitan," he said, finger shaking. "You speak to fifty villages at once. Only Allah is omnipresent. Only God should have a voice that reaches everywhere. By mimicking His power, you commit blasphemy."
The pundit snapped in next, as if he had been waiting for his turn to throw a stone.
"And the girl," he added, with disgust that did not even try to hide itself. "A low-caste gypsy singing sacred verses? It corrupts dharma. The youth are forgetting their station."
The granthi spoke last, quieter—but his quietness carried a threat.
"It is a distraction from duty," he muttered. "Laughter is cheap. Faith is hard."
Jinnah listened with the polished face of a man who had survived hostile committees and worse dinner tables. He did not argue. He did not scold. He did not beg.
He dismissed them with vague promises—"We will review the content," "We will maintain decency," "Your concerns are noted"—and sent them away.
But once the door closed, the air in the room changed.
He no longer looked like a host.
He looked like a commander reviewing an incoming threat.
"If they declare the radio haram," he said, voice controlled, "the villagers will smash the receivers out of fear. We lose the network overnight."
2) The Soldier's Solution
The studio, which had recently felt like a cockpit, suddenly felt like a courtroom again.
Abdullah Shafi sat with his hands folded, guilt written across his face—as if his knowledge itself had invited this backlash. Ahmed looked tight-jawed. Evelyn leaned against the doorframe, watching Jinnah pace. Even the air seemed to carry static.
"We counter them," Jinnah said. "With logic. We explain the science of radio waves. We teach them it is physics, not magic."
Balvinder, who had been polishing his belt, stopped. He looked up slowly, like a man deciding whether to speak to a superior—or save him from himself.
"Sir," he said, respectfully, "you are thinking like a lawyer."
"And what should I think like?" Jinnah asked, without softness.
Balvinder's eyes did not drop. He knew the villages. He knew the kind of fear that didn't care about truth.
"You cannot fight a mullah with a physics book," Balvinder said. "He will burn the book and call the ashes proof."
Jinnah stopped pacing.
"Then what do you suggest, Havildar?"
Balvinder spoke simply, like a man naming a tool.
"Fight the beard with the shrine."
Jinnah's stare sharpened.
"Explain."
Balvinder leaned forward, voice turning practical.
"Punjab has two faiths," he said. "The faith of the Book—hard, strict, proud. And the faith of the Soil—the Sufis. The people fear the mullah, but they love the saint. They love Bulleh Shah. Waris Shah. Baba Farid."
Evelyn watched, alert. Abdullah's eyes flickered, uneasy but listening.
Balvinder continued, sensing momentum.
"The mullah says music is the Devil," he said, "but at Data Darbar in Lahore, there is qawwali. Every Thursday. If the radio is wrapped in the green shawl of the Sufi… the mullah cannot touch it."
3) The Internal War
Jinnah scowled.
"You want me to pivot to mysticism?" he said. "I am a constitutionalist. I do not deal in shrines and amulets. It is theatrics."
And then Bilal's voice slid into his mind, smooth as oil on a blade.
It is brilliant.
Jinnah's jaw tightened.
Not you too.
Balvinder waited, sensing something he could not see. Evelyn's eyes narrowed, not at Balvinder—but at the way Jinnah's posture shifted, as if he was listening to someone else.
Balvinder is right, Bilal pressed, Sir. You are trying to win a culture war with a legal brief. It will not work. To beat the clergy, you must claim the moral high ground. And in Punjab, the highest ground is Data Darbar.
"I refuse," Jinnah said aloud, startling Abdullah. "I will not exploit faith for political cover. It is cynical."
Bilal did not retreat.
You gave me your word.
Jinnah froze, fingers tightening around the back of his chair.
You said you would do what is necessary, Bilal continued, voice gentler but more dangerous. You said you would build a nation. Nations are built on stories. If you do not do this, the mullahs will shut the radio, the Zaildars will return, and the British will step in and claim "law and order" again. Is your dignity worth losing the estate?
Jinnah's knuckles whitened. He hated how correct it sounded.
"What is the plan?" he asked, but inside his head the words were colder, sharper.
Go big, Bilal said. Do not just talk about Sufis. Take them there. A pilgrimage. You, the team, and the villages. To Data Darbar. Make it thanksgiving for surviving the flood. Distribute langar. Let Sohni sing the kalam of the saints. Wrap the radio in legitimacy so thick even the clergy hesitate to touch it. "A pilgrimage," Jinnah muttered, disgust sharp in his throat. "I am to play feudal patron-saint now?" Yes, Bilal replied without shame. And you will pay for the tickets.
Jinnah closed his eyes. It felt vulgar. Populist. Emotional. Everything he despised about mass politics.
And it was, infuriatingly, the only move that protected the machine he had built.
He opened his eyes.
"Fine," he said, voice clipped. "We do it."
4) The Announcement
That evening, the studio changed its face.
There were no jokes. No teasing. No playful arguments. Even Balvinder sat straighter.
Abdullah spoke with reverence, the kind that made villages fall silent without knowing why.
"Brothers and sisters," he began. "Dark clouds gather. Some men—men of rigid hearts—have called this voice a sin. They say we have forgotten God."
He paused, letting the words sit like weight.
"But how can we forget?" Abdullah continued. "We, who survived the waters? We, who saw mercy when the canals broke?"
Then the voice changed.
It became quieter, sharper—controlled like a blade being drawn slowly.
Jinnah's voice, recorded and deliberate, came over the air.
"This is Muhammad Ali Jinnah," he said. "To give thanks for the safety of Sandalbar, I have decided to travel to the shrine of Data Ganj Bakhsh in Lahore."
In village squares, men stared at the box. Women paused mid-roti. Children stopped running.
The "Big Sahib" was going to the Darbar.
"I will distribute langar to the poor," Jinnah continued. "Sohni will sing the kalam of the saints. And I invite you— all of you— to join me."
Abdullah returned, voice rising with the authority of a man announcing a holy wedding.
"This Friday," he declared. "Arrive at Montgomery Railway Station. Jinnah Sahib has booked the bogies. The tickets are free. We go to bow our heads not to a man, but to the One who saved us."
5) The Nagging Aunt
The reaction was not excitement.
It was pandemonium.
For women who rarely left their village boundaries, Lahore might as well have been another world. For men who counted coins like scars, a free train ride felt like impossible generosity. Children began pestering their fathers as if the decision was already made.
"Abba! We must go! The Djinn is going!"
Wives turned into prosecutors.
"Are we heathens?" they demanded. "The Sahib is giving thanks! We must go too!"
The whole countryside began to buzz with plans—who would watch the cattle, who would carry food, who would borrow a better shawl, who would sit near the window.
Back at the Lodge, the mood was the opposite of festive.
Jinnah paced in the library, pouring himself water with aggressive precision. Even the clink of glass sounded irritated.
In his mind, he spoke like a man offended by his own reflection.
"This is preposterous," he muttered. "I am a barrister of Lincoln's Inn. I discuss constitutional reform. Now I am leading a caravan of singing villagers to a shrine. I feel like a carnival barker."
Bilal's reply came instantly, light as mockery.
You look like a leader.
"I look like a politician," Jinnah corrected, disdain sharp enough to cut paper. "Buying votes with biryani."
It is langar, Sir, Bilal said, as if explaining to a stubborn child. Spiritual. "It is bribery with a garnish of piety," Jinnah snapped—in pristine English, as if the language itself could wash away the taste. "And the cost. Do you know what the North Western Railway charges for a special charter? I could have built another textile shed." Consider it an investment in spiritual defense, Bilal teased. Cheaper than a riot. "You are an insufferable pragmatist," Jinnah grumbled, finally sitting down, the fight draining into paperwork. I learned from the best, Bilal replied.
Jinnah stared at the checkbook as if it had personally betrayed him. Then he signed.
The ink dried. The decision became real.
He called out, voice returning to command.
"Ahmed."
Ahmed appeared immediately.
"Yes, Sir?"
"Tell the kitchen to prepare," Jinnah said. "We travel tomorrow." He paused, then added with cold dignity, "And Ahmed—make sure I have a very comfortable seat on that train. If I am to be a pilgrim, I refuse to be an uncomfortable one."